


don't you know heartaches are heroes (when their pockets are full)?

by kadaransmuggler



Series: seven year ache [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hope, Lonesome Road DLC, M/M, Trans Benny, Trans Pregnancy, Unhealthy Realtionships, that kind of maybe get fixed, trans character written by a trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 21:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14317512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: It's hard to love a courier.Even harder to love one like Eli.





	don't you know heartaches are heroes (when their pockets are full)?

                Eli falls into bed with Benny as easy as he falls into any old habit. He thinks it should be harder than it is, to fall into the bed of the man who tried to kill him, but nobody’s ever accused him of being cautious. And he’s good, too, it’s the best sex Eli has had in years. But laying next to him after is the problem, when he feels like he wants to crawl out of his own skin at the thought of being this vulnerable. Usually, he’s already getting up, pulling his clothes back on. Eli’s always been one to fuck them and leave them, and Benny shouldn’t be an exception, but he is.

                “Shame I ever tried to kill you,” Benny says, dragging him out of his reverie, the sheet pooled around his waist, sweaty and still just a little out of breath. Eli snorts from his place next to Benny, one leg outside the blankets.

                “Coulda told you I was a better fuck than you’d get elsewhere,” Eli says, leaning over and plucking a lighter from the pocket of his jeans. Neither of them mention how Eli had probably been more considerate than anyone else, too, never telling Benny what he should or should not have in his pants, just asking for permission before touching and then rutting him into the mattress until they were both a mess. He reaches over, stealing a cigarette from the end table by the bed and lighting it.

                “Hey, that’s my lighter,” Benny protests, sitting up just enough to look offended, and Eli turns to look at him with a crooked grin.

                “The Khans told me to shove it up your ass when I found you. Thought I might keep it, but if you really want it back, well, maybe they’ll get a kick out of it,” he answers. Benny shakes his head and lays back down with a huff.

                “Fine, fine. Keep it, I guess. I did try to kill you,” he mumbles, guilt flashing in his eyes for half a second, and Eli’s grin turns downright predatory.

                He drops the lighter down onto the bed before rolling over, straddling Benny’s waist. He sits up, his hands coming to rest on Eli’s hips

                “Ready for round two?” Benny asks, and Eli chuckles, tilting his chin up. The cigarette dangles from his mouth, and Benny thinks about taking it. He doesn’t, though, because Eli drags his other hand down Benny’s stomach and he can’t quite stop himself from squirming.

                “Not quite,” Eli murmurs, and then he snuffs out the cigarette and leaves it on the bedside table, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his lips. It’s just this side of angry, and Benny knows he ain’t over what happened in Goodsprings, but he can’t bring himself to care as he moves his hands up Eli’s sides. He’s playing with fire, but he thinks he’d be okay with getting burned.

                Eli breaks the kiss to leave a trail of them down Benny’s jaw, until his lips find that sensitive spot just beneath his ear and Benny’s hands are fisted in the sheets around their waists.

                “You have something else in mind?” he asks, a little breathlessly. Eli chuckles, the sound sending vibrations through him, and Benny had thought five minutes ago that he’d been fully satisfied, but now he wanted the courier to have his way with him on every surface in the room. He lets out a whine as Eli’s teeth brush against his skin. Eli laughs again, low and warm.

                “I stopped to talk to House before I made my way here,” Eli tells him, like it’s a secret, and Benny stills beneath him. The fear he feels now still isn’t enough to push out the arousal and he just hopes that Eli will fuck him again before he kills him.

                “I guess this is the end of the line, then,” Benny breathes, and Eli starts trailing kisses lower and lower.

                “In a sense,” he agrees, and then Benny’s back hits the mattress and he shifts his hips so Eli can slide his knee between his thighs.

                “You gonna tell me, or are you gonna keep me in the dark?” he asks, nervously, and Eli laughs again.

                “I’ve got a plan,” he begins, but then he pulls his knee back only to replace it with his hand and Benny arches up, a whine building in his throat as Eli slips two fingers inside, “but I think it can wait until we’re done.”

                “You’re a cruel man,” Benny gasps, and Eli laughs again, moving back up to press another kiss against his lips.

                “I could always stop,” he reminds him, and Benny’s hands come up, his nails digging into Eli’s back as he holds him in place.

                “Don’t you dare,” he breathes, so Eli gets back to work until Benny comes undone beneath him a second time before sitting back, breathing just a little unsteady. He licks his fingers with a smirk and Benny lets out a whine, falling back against the pillows. He thinks it’s a little unfair what the courier does to him.

                “So what’s the plan?” Benny asks, his voice just shy of shaking.

                “We take Vegas from House,” he answers, and then he slides off the bed before picking Benny up and slamming his back into the wall. Benny gasps, clinging to Eli as the courier laughs. There’ll be bruises on them both come morning

                “You’re insatiable,” he says, but he wraps his legs around his waist eagerly, tilting his head back to give him easier access to his neck as he slips inside.

                “Maybe I just want to work out some aggression,” Eli says, voice low, and then he moves his hips just enough to make Benny whine, as sensitive as he still is, and all thoughts of Vegas escape the both of them until night has long turned into morning.

* * *

                The first time they’d fucked, when they were well and truly done because neither of them could go anymore, Eli had rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in the pillow. His breath evened out, slowing, but Benny could tell he wasn’t asleep. He looks over at his gun on the nightstand, thinks about how easy it’d be to reach over and pick it up, to put a bullet in Eli’s head and ensure that his plans kept going smooth.

                He doesn’t. Instead, he reaches out, puts one hand on the flat of Eli’s back. His skin is warm, smells like sweat and sunshine, and the courier tenses beneath him. He doesn’t move, though, keeps his eyes closed and pretends to sleep even as a breath hitches just a little.

                It’s then that Benny realizes that Eli was the one who put the gun on the nightstand, within reach, Eli who’d rolled over like he was waiting for something. “Fuck,” he breathes, and it is only then that Eli raises his head.

                “What’s the matter? Too much of a coward to do it now?” he asks, eyes cold and mean, but a little desperate too.

                “I didn’t want to do it before. I’m not a murderer, I’m a businessman, and now we’re working together. Did you really expect me to plant another bullet in your brain?” Benny asks, demands, and he doesn’t know why it stings a little.

                “Shoulda known it wouldn’t work,” he mutters, and then he’s sitting up, swinging his feet off the side of the bed. The sun is rising outside, the sky turning grey. In a few minutes, it’ll be turning pink. Benny’s watched a lot of Vegas sunrises before. This one feels different.

                “Should have known what wouldn’t work?” he asks, defensive, and Eli turns to him as he pulls on his jeans.

                “Should have known you wouldn’t be brave enough to finish the fucking job,” he says, and then he’s storming out of the bedroom, snatching his clothes up as he passes.

                Benny stays where he is, turns his eyes up to the ceiling. He doesn’t know why he feels so empty and hollow inside.

* * *

                When Eli leaves the Tops, Benny is dead. At least, that’s the official story, the one that most people will know in the days to come. There’s only a scant handful of people that know Benny is just holed up in the Tops, waiting on Eli to put the rest of his plan into motion. He spends the next few weeks bored out of his skull while Eli plays nice with House, but the courier makes sure to visit every so often, so it could be worse. He doesn’t leave his room, either, because it’s too much of a risk. He’s only got Yes-Man for company, and Benny’s never regretted his decisions more.

                He also regrets the fact that he put a bullet in Eli’s head. The courier tells him he’s over it, tells him that he never really cared in the first place because business was business, but Benny sees the way Eli’s eyes track every move he makes, remembers how he’d snapped at him after that first night. Eli never stays, either, pulling his jeans on as soon as they’re done, always leaving.

                Months have passed before Eli comes back in the middle of the night with clothes that are nice enough for the casino but not nice enough for a Chairman. Benny knows they’re for him, because they’re too short to be for Eli.

                “What’s the occasion?” Benny asks from the bed, pulling Eli down onto his lap as soon as he’s close enough and pressing a kiss against his lips. Eli is warm against him, smells like sweat and the desert sand, maybe a little of gun oil.

                “I thought you might like to be there when House dies,” he says, when he pulls back, a wicked grin on his face. Benny’s grinning back when he kisses him again, fingers curling into fists in Eli’s t-shirt.

                “You’re too good to me,” he says, and he doesn’t tell him how he’d missed him while he was gone, doesn’t tell him just how much he’s thought about him for the past few weeks. He knows Eli’s type well enough by now, knows that if he said something like that, Eli would get cagey and leave for a while, maybe forever. Everything else can come later, Benny tells himself, when Vegas is theirs and they don’t have to worry anymore.

                Later, he’ll laugh at how foolishly optimistic he was. It’s hard to love a courier, and even harder to love a man like Eli.

* * *

 

                Eli is gone when Benny finds out. Benny isn’t quite sure where, either, Eli had only mentioned a caravan in between kisses before he’d fucked him again. He’d still been there when Benny had fallen asleep, but he was gone by the time he’d woken up. Benny usually didn’t mind- it was nice to have the Lucky 38 to himself, and Eli just got mean when he was stuck in one place for long.

                But then he’d gotten sick and taken a trip to the Old Mormon Fort out in Freeside, where Arcade had told him he was pregnant and gone and ruined all of his plans.

                Gannon must have been sympathetic, because he’d told Julie to get by without him and walked Benny back to the Lucky 38.

                “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Benny admitted, because Eli looked like a cornered animal anytime Benny got close to telling him he loved him and neither of them were really ready to have a child.

                “Shouldn’t be too long until he’s back. He’s gotten good at coming home, with the city being his, and all,” Arcade says, almost hesitantly, and Benny buries his face in his hands and sinks onto one of the old couches.

                “It’s not just that. He’s not…he’s not fit to be a dad. And neither am I, but at least I think I can adjust. He won’t even fall asleep in the same bed as me. Won’t even look at me, sometimes,” Benny says, and when he looks up Arcade realizes that he’s probably never let anybody see him look so scared and vulnerable before.

                “Tell him when he comes back. Eli’s isn’t a bad man, Benny. He cares. He just…doesn’t know how to show it. But he deserves to know,” he says, grimacing, because he knew what a shitty excuse that was. Arcade had stayed for awhile, but then he’d gone back home, leaving Benny with his thoughts when he couldn’t even drink them away.

                Another week drags by, and then another, and Benny has started to worry, really worry now, because Eli’s never been gone this long before, not after House’s death, when Vegas started to become theirs. He starts sleeping down on the casino floor, after talking Boone into helping him manhandle a couch into the elevator and out near the door.

                Eli staggers inside late one night, or maybe it’s early one morning, Benny only sees the darkness outside for a half a second before the door shuts again. The lights flicker on and if Benny were a different man he might have screamed, ‘cause Eli is wrapped in bloody bandages and angrier than Benny’s ever seen him.

* * *

                Benny tries to wait for the right time to tell him, but Eli’s moodier after he gets back than he would have been if he’d stayed. They’re in the cocktail lounge, a bottle of whiskey in Eli’s hand and a glass of Nuka Cola in Benny’s. Eli had been itching for a fight all week, and now he’s taking it out on Benny, hurling thinly veiled insults until Benny’s ready to scream.

                “I’m pregnant,” he says, then, instead, because he isn’t going to give Eli the satisfaction of getting a rise out of him. The air goes still and silent as Eli stares at him, the seconds dragging on as Benny waits, feeling like he’s going to be sick.

                “What?” Eli asks, his voice quiet. His fingers tighten around the bottle of whiskey, and for one horrifying second Benny thinks he might throw it at him. He realizes, then, in the handful of heartbeats before he can make himself respond, that he barely knows Eli at all. It doesn’t matter how he feels, doesn’t matter that he hasn’t been able to stop himself from falling in love when all they’ve done is rut.

                “I’m pregnant. I found out while you were in Zion,” he says, voice tight. Eli sits the bottle of whiskey down, his movements deliberate, and then he stands up and walks over to him. Benny puts his drink down on the counter, too, but he changes his stance because he refuses to let the courier corner him.

                “I’ve been home a week. Why haven’t you told me?” he asks, his voice rough.

                “I wanted to find the right time. But I realized there’s never going to be a right time,” he answers. Eli sighs, then leans down, pressing a kiss to Benny’s cheek before he takes his hand in his own.

                “I’m sorry. I could give you a dozen excuses for the way I am, but they’d just be excuses. I know I’m not…I know I’m hard to handle. You deserve better,” Eli murmurs, and then Benny leans up on his tiptoes to kiss him, letting go of his hand to wrap his arms around his neck. It’s softer than any kiss they’ve shared before, and when Benny pulls away Eli holds his breath like he’s waiting for a knife in the back. For some reason, Benny feels like crying. He decides he’ll blame it on the baby.

                Benny opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, but Eli speaks before he can. “I can help you get rid of it, I think, in a safe way,” he says, his hands resting lightly on his hips, and Benny goes still. He hadn’t thought about it, not really, but he realized that he couldn’t bring himself to give this up. It might be the only part of Eli he ever gets to keep, and he knows that isn’t the right thing to think about when bringing a child into the world, but Benny is finally ready to love something and he thinks that he’s more ready to have the baby than he is to give it up.

                “ _It_ is _our_ baby. And I’m keeping it,” he says, voice stiff as he pulls back. Eli sighs, but he doesn’t make a move to grab him again. All the fight has drained out of both of them, even as Benny puts one hand on his stomach protectively and tries not to show how scared he is.

                “I’m not going to try to change your mind, then. But this…I’m not going to be a good father,” he warns. Benny sighs, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around him. Eli hesitates, but then he wraps Benny up in a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

                “I don’t expect you to. I know I’m going to be doing most of the work. But I want to keep the baby,” he says. Eli just nods, pressing another kiss to Benny’s head before he lets his hand drift down, pressing over the flat of Benny’s stomach, right next to Benny’s hand. It’s too early for there to be any signs, but for the first time since he was seventeen and stupid, Eli lets himself hope.

                “I’ll do what I can,” Eli promises, voice cracking just a little.

                “I…good. But you aren’t going to do to this baby like you do to me. If you want to keep pushing it away, like you do me, you can find somewhere else to live. This baby is going to know that it’s _loved_ ,” he says, and that’s when he knows that he’ll break his own heart for his baby.

                It’s not like Eli doesn’t break his heart anyway, like he doesn’t leave it in pieces at the door every time he leaves. Benny tries not to hold it against him. It’s starting to get harder.

                Eli just nods, presses another kiss to the top of his head. Later, Benny will wonder if Eli ever thought he might get better, or if it was just another way to pull his heart around.

* * *

                Benny was a fool to think Eli might stick around. He’s gone two weeks after knows, and he would have left sooner if he’d been healed up enough. He knows Eli is trying a little more, though, cause he shows up more frequently as Benny starts to get bigger, his stomach rounding out. There’s still a lot of nights that Benny paces alone in the penthouse, Yes-Man’s eyes following him as he moves back and forth in front of the windows, one hand on his belly. He starts talking to the baby when he starts showing, promising that he was going to keep Eli from breaking the baby’s heart too.

                Arcade starts coming by more often, though, sitting with Benny for hours. There are some nights he just stays in the Lucky 38, tells Benny it’ll be easier if he’s only a shout away when he needs him. Benny thanks him as many ways as he can without actually saying it, but he finds that he does sleep better at night with the doctor down the hallway.

                Boone starts coming by, too, doing the heavy lifting to get everything set up. Benny doesn’t know Eli’s friends, not really, only knows that Eli gave them permission to stay in the Presidential Suite as long and as much as they wanted, but Eli must have told them because they all start showing up more. Cass would have been good to drink with, he thinks, because she’ll sit in the lounge with him while she steadily makes her way through their liquor supply and he makes similar progress on their Sarsaparilla stash. Her jokes get worse the more she drinks, but by the end Benny always laughs until he’s lightheaded.

                He isn’t sure when Eli’s friends started becoming his friends, too, but he’s not complaining. He likes the company, and they’re better to him than Eli ever is.

* * *

                Eli tries to stay more the bigger Benny gets, but he feels like something is crawling under his skin. Old ghosts he can’t shake hang heavy around him, and sometimes he thinks he might die if he doesn’t leave. He’s always been selfish, so he always does leave, lets the dust settle onto his skin like it’ll protect him. He doesn’t go far, though, always comes home when he feels like he can breathe again. Leaves before he does something they'll regret, but comes back before either of them could start to worry. He's trying to do better, he is. He's just not good at it.

                Benny’s started to get real big when Eli picks up the signal on his Pip-Boy. It’s cryptic, only coordinates and the words _Courier Six_. He can’t face Benny when he’s about to leave on something this big, so instead he leaves a note and packs his gear, and heads out into the desert before the early morning sun has risen.

* * *

                Benny finds the note on the pillow next to his. Eli must have snuck in and left it. When he reads it, he tries not to be angry.

                _It’s an ending_ , Eli promises.

                Benny hopes that means things are going to change between them.

* * *

                He recognizes where he’s going before he’s halfway there. This is a road he’s walked before.

                A road he thought he’d never walk again.

                The memories feel like barbed wire wrapped around his heart.

* * *

* * *

                 _He is seventeen when he first steps foot in the Divide. It is empty, devoid of life, but Eli’s never been a people person. He runs a handful of jobs through the empty, broken streets, and he goes back to Vegas._

_He comes back a handful of months later, after his eighteenth birthday. There is a town, in the center of the ruins, and an empty building that will become a home just for him. He builds his own furniture, builds a life he’s never gotten to have. He lives in between a bar and a general store._

_He knows it’s his deliveries that keep the place going, so he keeps making them. When he leaves, it is always with regret. When he returns, it is always with a smile._

_He has finally found a home._

_He will not have it for long._

* * *

* * *

                 _He meets a girl. She works in the general store, sometimes, and she has red hair and freckles and she smells like sunshine. He walks her to the bar, two buildings down, points out his own front door with a smile. They drink and they drink until they can’t drink anymore, and then she clings to his arm and follows him home._

_They fall into bed together. Neither of them will remember much of that night, but it will become a regular thing. Usually, he’ll go home with her, fall into her bed. Sometimes he’ll fall asleep next to her, one arm thrown over her stomach, pulling her close._

_They have a talk early on. “I’m not in love with you,” he tells her, earnestly, honestly, because he likes her too much to break her heart._

_“Thank God,” she says, and that is the end of the talk. He finds that she’s easy to get along with._

* * *

* * *

                 _They’re laying in bed together when she tells him. “I’m pregnant. Don’t know if it’s yours. Probably is, as often as you’re here,” she says, and he feels like all the breath has been knocked out of him. The emotions that sweep through him are dizzying. Elation, because he’s always wanted a family, and fear, because he doesn’t like being tied down even now._

_He tells her he’ll claim the child no matter who it looks like, and she gives him a soft smile and a kiss on the cheek before rolling over on top of him._

_He leaves the next morning, on another job._

* * *

                There are two rings he keeps at the bottom of his pack. He never got a chance to use them, so he keeps them. It’s a reminder, or maybe it’s a punishment, but he keeps them all the same.

                He expects the Divide to be familiar, but it’s heartbreakingly difficult. The last time he’d been here, he’d stood outside the gates and breathed in the ash. He tries not to think about everything he has lost.

* * *

                Deep in the ruins, he finds a house. It is more intact than the rubble around it, with some of the rooms perfectly fine. He remembers this house, remembers waking up in the bed with a girl who laughed like she might never laugh again. It had never been quiet before, but now it is still and silent, and even the howling winds outside are muted.

                He walks into the bedroom. It is nearly untouched. There are still pictures in frames on the dresser- one of them is of him, when he was nineteen and stupid. Now, he is twenty-four, and he has never felt so tired before.

                He finds a skeleton, underneath a pile of rubble. The clothes she was wearing are tattered and faded, but there’s a bracelet on her wrist, one he remembers giving her.

                He stumbles back into the ruins with a howl, a sharp keen of grief rising in his throat.

                He realizes then that he had hoped she might have made it out, might have left for some reason.

                He thinks he killed her, as sure as if he’d put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger himself.

                He stumbles onwards, towards the temple in the distance, towards the end of all of this, and leaves his heart scattered in pieces behind him.  

* * *

                Afterwards, when Ulysses is sitting on the canyon ridge, Eli picks his way through the ruins again, until he finds the house. If he closes his eyes, he could pretend that he got caught outside in a sandstorm. They were rare, but they happened, sometimes.

                He goes back to the bedroom, pulls the rubble off of the skeleton and sits down beside her.

                “I’m gonna be a dad. Again, I guess, but I don’t think you were even showing,” he tells her, it isn’t until he feels tears splash onto his hand that he realizes he is crying.

                He can almost feel her standing next to him, one hand on his shoulder, a warm smile on his face. He thinks she might have said: _if it is a girl, name her after me, and if it is a boy, hope that he’s more like his other father._

                Instead, the only thing he can hear is the wind outside, and the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears.

                “I’m going to do it right, this time, Mariah,” he promises, and when he leaves he leaves the Divide, leaves Ulysses sitting on the side of cliff, leaves the life he might have had behind.

* * *

                When he steps into the Lucky 38, Benny is laying on a couch, their son on his chest. “His name is Warren,” he tells him, with a tired smile, and Eli chokes out another sob. He walks forward like he’s walking on eggshells, but Benny holds the baby up to him. Eli takes his son in his arms as the child opens his eyes, blinking up at him.

                “Hi,” he says, and then he starts to cry.

                Later, Arcade will come into the room and walk out with Warren in his arms. Eli doesn’t want to let his son out of his sight, but he’s got something he needs to do and it’s easier without the baby in the way.

                “I got something I want to say to you,” he says, and he pulls out a box he’s carried in his bag for the past five years. He kneels on the carpet next to the couch, reaches out to take one of Benny’s hands in his.

                “This should be good,” Benny says, voice soft, a faint smile on his face. Eli presses a kiss to the back of his hand and pulls out the rings.

                “Will you marry me?” he asks, and he can see the uncertainty shining in Benny’s eyes.

                “You gonna leave me again?” he asks, wary, and Eli swallows hard.

                “Not like I did. Never again,” he promises, swears, and Benny leans forward and pulls him into a kiss.

                “Yeah. Yeah, I think…I think I’d like that,” he says, and Eli slips the ring onto his finger and wraps his arms around him.

* * *

                Eli is still Eli and Benny is still Benny. They argue, don’t fit together perfectly, but Eli is trying harder than he ever has before. It’s not easy, and some days he shuts himself in a spare bedroom and takes so much Jet he feels like he’s never gonna come down from that high. But it’s better than it was. They work together, and when Eli fucks up he tries to apologize.

                Warren grows up clinging to Benny’s legs. It isn’t easy to raise a toddler, isn’t easy to run a city, but Benny falls into the roles like he falls into old habits.

                It isn’t perfect, not by a long shot. There’s still fights and sleepless nights. But it’s a beginning, and a better one than they thought they’d ever have.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note that not all trans people experience trans-ness in the same way. I feel like I handled Benny respectfully, mostly because I drew on my own feelings and experiences, but what's respectful to me may not be for everyone. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the first tale in Eli's saga. It's probably going to be the happiest one. There's a lot more stuff I could/want to write about him, so if you liked this, stay tuned, I guess. As always, feel free to leave kudos or a review. I absolutely love them, and do my best to respond to every single comment. Thanks for reading!


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